Seattle

Seattle! You try so hard to be so many other places; you play up your citizens' technical savvy to bring them from Silicon Valley, you try to order yourself to appeal to New Yorkers, you seek to preserve the friendliness of smaller towns and your own history. Why can't you be happy with yourself? Be your own city. Be rainy and sunny and flaunt with pride your streak of provincial good-naturedness. And, for God's sake, start driving people away. Housing prices are too high, and it's hard to find a cheap, good coffee anymore.

The other day I came across my 'Honorary Citizen of Seattle' diploma from graduate student days. Wonder what this entitles me to – a free trip up the Needle, a couple of sleepless nights on Puget Sound, a lobster supper on Alkai Beach or formally shaking hands with good old Bill Gates, on the occasion of my being awarded umpteen million dollars for a lifetime of virtual achievement....??

Seattle is a haunted city. All that rain is just a pretext.

i live in seattle. I have a crappy job. the art scene needs alot of help. Too many people have SUV's and shop at fancy retail stores. It used to be an awsome city. I was in love with it. now it sucks. I think more cool people should come here and shake it up. Or all maybe the cool people should move away. that's what I'm doing. fuck it. I'm going to L.A. .....

I met this girl and she said she was from Seattle. So naturally, I thought that she might be cool. I was wrong. She wasn't really from Seattle. She was, in fact, from some town four hours away from Seattle which apparently was known for one thing and one thing alone; being four hours away from Seattle.
If she had told me all this when I first met her, we might be friends, it's that type of blunt honesty which can creat a trusting relationship. But no, she told me she was from Seattle and this desire for simplicity has put a chasm between us, never to be breached.